ElectedAndy Sherman-Ash

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, or risk that you have taken and its impact on you.

High school student government is a microcosm of American politics: a group of elected officials makes decisions that will affect and hopefully benefit their peers. They represent the larger student body, and therefore play an extremely integral part of each class's future. By the spring of my junior year, I no longer wanted to be an outsider looking in; I wanted to be a part of the collective group making the decisions. My high school had given so much to me: an education, a group of friends, and memories I will remember forever, and I felt it imperative that I do something to help my class. The way that I felt I could be the most beneficial to my classmates was to lend my unique viewpoint to the student council, which is why I chose to run for senior class vice president.

I didn't run just for the sake of it, I rand because I thought I could win and do a better job than the incumbent; the same guy who had held the position all three previous years and had his sights set on a political future. In spite of this, I believed the class could relate better to me than the incumbent vice president, as I had friends in various social circles that gave me a much more diverse outlook on my class' needs.